The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him

by Paul Leicester Ford

“There, I told Mr. Beekman that I was trying to magnetize you, and though your back was turned, you came to me at once.”

“Er—really, quite wonderful, you know,” said Mr. Beekman. “I positively sharn’t dare to be left alone with you, Miss De Voe.”

“You needn’t fear me. I shall never try to magnetize you, Mr. Beekman,” said Miss De Voe. “I was so pleased,” she continued, turning to Peter, “to see you take that deliberate survey of the room, and then come over here.”

Peter smiled. “I go out so little now, that I have turned selfish. I don’t go to entertain people. I go to be entertained. Tell me what you have been doing?”

But as Peter spoke, there was a little stir, and Peter had to say “excuse me.” He crossed the room, and said, “I am to have the pleasure, Mrs. Grinnell,” and a moment later the two were walking towards the dining-room. Miss De Voe gave her arm to Beekman calmly, but her eyes followed Peter. They both could have made a better arrangement. Most dinner guests can.

It was a large dinner, and so was served in the ball-room. The sixty people gathered were divided into little groups, and seated at small tables holding six or eight. Peter knew all but one at his table, to the extent of having had previous meetings. They were all fashionables, and the talk took the usual literary-artistic-musical turn customary with that set. “Men, not principles” is the way society words the old cry, or perhaps “personalities, not generalities” is a better form. So Peter ate his dinner quietly, the conversation being general enough not to force him to do more than respond, when appealed to. He was, it is true, appealed to frequently. Peter had the reputation, as many quiet men have, of being brainy. Furthermore he knew the right kind of people, was known to enjoy a large income, was an eligible bachelor, and was “interesting and unusual.” So society no longer rolled its Juggernaut over him regardlessly, as of yore. A man who was close friends with half a dozen exclusives of the exclusives, was a man not to be disregarded, simply because he didn’t talk. Society people applied much the same test as did the little “angle” children, only in place of “he’s frinds wid der perlice,” they substituted “he’s very intimate with Miss De Voe, and the Ogdens and the Pells.”

Peter had dimly hoped that he would find himself seated at Leonore’s table—He had too much self depreciation to think for a moment that he would take her in—but hers was a young table, he saw, and he would not have minded so much if it hadn’t been for that Marquis. Peter began to have a very low opinion of foreigners. Then he remembered that Leonore had the same prejudice, so he became more reconciled to the fact that the Marquis was sitting next her. And when Leonore sent him a look and a smile, and held up the wrist, so as to show the pearl bracelet, Peter suddenly thought what a delicious rissole he was eating.

As the dinner waned, one of the footmen brought him a card, on which Watts had written: “They want me to say a few words of welcome and of Dot. Will you respond?” Peter read the note and then wrote below it: “Dear Miss D’Alloi: You see the above. May I pay you a compliment? Only one? Or will it embarrass you?” When the card came back a new line said: “Dear Peter: I am not afraid of your compliment, and am very curious to hear it.” Peter said, “Tell Mr. D’Alloi that I will with pleasure.” Then he tucked the card in his pocket. That card was not going to be wasted.

So presently the glasses were filled up, even Peter saying, “You may give me a glass,” and Watts was on his feet. He gave “our friends” a pleasant welcome, and after apologizing for their absence, said that at least, “like the little wife in the children’s play, ‘We too have not been idle,’ for we bring you a new friend and introduce her to you to-night.”

Then Peter rose, and told the host: “Your friends have been grieved at your long withdrawal from them, as the happy faces and welcome we tender you this evening, show. We feared that the fascination of European art, with its beauty and ease and finish, had come to over-weigh the love of American nature, despite its life and strength and freshness; that we had lost you for all time. But to-night we can hardly regret even this long interlude, if to that circumstance we owe the happiest and most charming combination of American nature and European art—Miss D’Alloi.”